Various global or local communication networks (the Internet, the World Wide Web, local area networks and the like) offer a user a vast amount of information. The information includes a multitude of contextual topics, such as but not limited to, news and current affairs, maps, company information, financial information and resources, traffic information, games and entertainment related information. Users use a variety of client devices (desktop, laptop, notebook, smartphone, tablets and the like) to have access rich content (like images, audio, video, animation, and other multimedia content from such networks).
Generally speaking, a given user can access a resource on the communication network by two principle means. The given user can access a particular resource directly, either by typing an address of the resource (typically an URL or Universal Resource Locator, such as www.webpage.com) or by clicking a link in an e-mail or in another web resource. Alternatively, the given user may conduct a search using a search engine to locate a resource of interest. The latter is particularly suitable in those circumstances, where the given user knows a topic of interest, but does not know the exact address of the resource she is interested in.
For example, the given user may be interested in viewing pictures of Britney Spears, but may not be aware of a particular resource that would present such information. Alternatively, the given user may be interested in locating the closest Starbucks coffee shop, but again may not be aware of a particular web resource to provide such location services. In these fictitious (yet practical) circumstances, the given user may run a web search using the search engine.
When the given user runs a web search using the search engine, she generally has two priorities. She wants the search engine to locate the most relevant results and she wants the results relatively fast. To at least partially address these concerns, it is known to present the user using a search engine query completion suggestions. For example, in response to a user typing a query “Britney” into the Google™ search engine, the user gets a list of suggestions in a drop down menu, namely “Britney Spears”, “Britney Spears ooh la la”, “Britney Spears songs”, “Britney Haynes”.
The general idea behind the suggestions is to simplify the user experience and enable a more user-friendly search experience. If the user were indeed looking for Britney Spears, by clicking on the suggest line “Britney Spears”, the user is displayed (without having to actually type up the whole query) with a search result page displaying various links and snippets of web site about Britney Spears. The user then can browse the search results and select a link that she is desirous of perusing.
US patent application 2012/0246165 published on Sep. 27, 2012 to Batraski et al teaches a system and method for presenting content in response to receiving a portion of a search query. A computing device receives, over a network from a user computer, a portion of a search query submitted by a user in a search query entry area. The computing device receives, from a search suggestion module, one or more search suggestions related to the portion of the query. The computing device transmits, to the user computer, the one or more search suggestions for display in a search suggestion region, the search suggestion region displayed differently than a search results area. The computing device transmits a search suggestion of the one or more search suggestions to a rich content module. The rich content module generates rich content related to the transmitted search suggestion. The computing device transmits, to the user computer, the rich content for display in the search suggestion region.